Insecurity Weakens Faith

"If you were honest, you’d probably admit there are moments when you do not feel 'Christian' at all," wrote pastor, author and theologian J.D. Greear. "Moments in which you care more about what’s coming on TV that night than you do the spread of the kingdom of God in the world. Moments in which you have fallen to that same old temptation for the thousandth time. Moments when God feels distant, almost like a stranger. Seasons in which your emotions for Him are lukewarm, if not downright cold. When you don’t jump out of bed in the morning hungry for His Word. When your mind wanders all over the place during prayer — that is, when you can bring yourself to pray. Moments when you’re not even sure you believe all this stuff."

Inwardly, I struggle with insecurity and that’s what God revealed to me this morning. It is definitely not the kind of uncertainty or lack of confidence about myself, but more of anxiety over what God Himself can do for my situation. It is a sign of a weakening faith.

Contrary to popular belief, Christians like me are not 100% steadfast people. It isn’t true that our prayer life is built on a rock-solid routine, or that we always pray with much passion and conviction. Don’t believe that Christians think they are better than everyone else too, because a genuine Christian possesses humility that is not self-seeking. It is not false modesty; it is a God-glorifying kind of humility.

Why is insecurity a sign of a weakening faith? Let us examine Luke 11:11-13:

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

It is clear that the Holy Spirit is a greater gift from God than any material or physical blessing. After all, genuine faith does not advocate the prosperity gospel for there is no doubt that God can provide anything that we will ever need. Why then, is receiving the Holy Spirit a greater blessing?

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (2 Corinthians 3:17 )

Because insecurity is a sign of weak faith, the Holy Spirit gives us freedom from all kinds of insecurity. If we seek God first in our life, we can stop being insecure about our physical appearance, our relationships, our job, our finances and many other things that make us anxious every single day. Our focus will be directed to God instead of how difficult our situation is. When we are worried about our credit card debts or our lack of resources, receiving the Holy Spirit will strengthen our faith that God is the ultimate provider as He owns everything.

The silver is mine and the gold is mine,' declares the LORD Almighty. (Haggai 2:8)

Whenever we wrestle with insecurity and we experience its many symptoms – lack of desire to pray, stress and irritability, envy and covetousness -  it would help to remind ourselves that God can set us free from all this anxiety, among other things. Faith is about letting God work on our behalf and giving up the struggle. Faith is saying, “I can’t possibly do this, but with God all things are possible.” Faith is approaching Him with much confidence; it does not underestimate a powerful, mighty God.

I am glad that God exposed my insecurity today, and replaced it with faith and hope. I pray that God will set you free from this spiritual battle, too. May God be glorified as He provides us a way out of everything that causes us to feel insecure.

“Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”

DIY: My First Decoupage Project

"The purpose of art," said Pablo Picasso, "is washing the dust of daily life off our souls." I used to think that art was complicated and only gifted people can produce a masterpiece. Approaching my mid-thirties has allowed me to appreciate traditional ways of doing things that don't necessarily motivate me to seek approval or popularity. At this age - being naturally drawn to a minimalist approach - I now often take time to escape the cult of productivity by reading, blogging, taking care of our small garden and most recently, engaging in DIY activities.

While browsing through Martha Stewart's website, I discovered all about decoupaging on its DIY & Crafts section. In a nutshell, "Decoupage is artistic sleight of hand. What appears to be a painted design is actually paper, glued in place. What looks like lacquer is just a few coats of clear varnish, and what begins as an unremarkable piece of furniture becomes a bold, modern design statement."

Instantly, I wanted to try this simple process of redesigning an object as I am quite fond of looking at vintage and shabby chic designs all over the internet. I never thought of myself as the creative type, but once in a while, I love doing old-fashioned things that keep me silent and busy.

When I was young, my parents bought a few furniture items made of Narra, and my mother fancied the idea of collecting antiques. One day, I found an old wooden closet door in her bedroom that she didn't want to throw away because it has a big mirror she can still use. That's when I thought of creating my very first decoupage piece. It was originally dark brown, so I decided to paint it with a light color to give it a fresh, new look.

This closet door was really just standing in the corner for years, dull and lifeless.

One only needs a pair of scissors and some standard white glue to begin this project, plus a bunch of pictures to decoupage with. These can come from newspapers, magazines, books, gift wrapper, greeting cards, fabric, lace, or in my case, paper napkins. I bought a set of garden-themed serviettes from Makati Supermarket in Alabang Town Center. I also used an old paint brush to spread the glue and stick the pictures neatly. My husband took care of buying the varnish and I told him to make sure it was colorless.

I also bought a set of serviettes filled with hearts from True Value, ATC.

A serviette is just a fancy British word for "table napkin."

As a preschool teacher, I have massive cutting skills!

My husband got involved in this project when I remembered that most table napkins are two-ply, hence, I needed his help to remove the other layer of each cutout before sticking the pictures onto the closet door.

Our son saw what we were doing and asked if he could try it as well.



Finally, when we were done, we applied a thin coat of clear varnish and let it try outside.

Lesson learned? Decoupaging is so simple, even a caveman can do it.

Go ahead and try it today!

A Reflection In the Midst of Failures and Suffering

“Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life,” said the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, “Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

I wonder what Steve Jobs considered “truly important,” since he was already worth over 100 million dollars when he was only 25 years old. He was also once one of Forbes’ youngest, richest men who had done it themselves without inherited wealth. Nevertheless, he had experienced failure early in life – something that I am sure, many of us have already gone through as well.

When I think about my own failures, I am encouraged to reflect on how to use the lessons from those failures to turn things around and succeed eventually. Here are some examples: I failed to learn a musical instrument at a young age. I failed to become a chess grandmaster even after a promising career in local chess tournaments. I failed to become an operations manager in the BPO industry within only a few years. I am already failing to complete my 2015 reading list, and I am failing to finish my comparative study for my first subject in graduate school.

The thought of possibly failing to receive my master’s degree in the next two years already scares me.

And then I remember the words of the apostle Paul in Romans 5:3-4:

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.

Suffering leads to endurance, or perseverance, or grit. Grit is courage and resolve, a strength of character. I view sufferings and failures as an opportunity for God to move in the midst of difficulties. They are the perfect moments for God to manifest His glory.

There were times when I or a family member was sick and because I failed to save enough money for hospitalization and other medical expenses, I could only pray for God’s healing and He had always healed us. He never once neglected us.

Or that time when I failed to prepare new lessons for my first grade class but the following day, classes were suspended due to heavy rains. God never failed to get involved even in the minutest details of my life.

There were even countless times when I would fail to exercise self-control and self-discipline by mindlessly, frequently eating unhealthy food. I suffered from obesity and thought that God wouldn’t probably be interested in my eating disorder but still I prayed that he would deliver me from the curse of stress eating, and He did in fact help me succeed to lose a lot of weight and start a healthy lifestyle.

Yes, as I write this, I am trying to comfort myself in the thought that even as I count all my failures against me and beat myself up for not doing any better, God sees something else in me. Lord, I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. (Psalm 139:14)

Today, I want to embrace failure and adopt a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset. Computer scientist and Pixar president Edwin Catmull writes:

We need to think about failure differently. I’m not the first to say that failure, when approached properly, can be an opportunity for growth. But the way most people interpret this assertion is that mistakes are a necessary evil. Mistakes aren’t a necessary evil. They aren’t evil at all. They are an inevitable consequence of doing something new (and, as such, should be seen as valuable; without them, we’d have no originality). And yet, even as I say that embracing failure is an important part of learning, I also acknowledge that acknowledging this truth is not enough. That’s because failure is painful, and our feelings about this pain tend to screw up our understanding of its worth. To disentangle the good and the bad parts of failure, we have to recognize both the reality of the pain and the benefit of the resulting growth.

At the end of the day, God’s presence tells me that I will be just fine. Really, I believe everything will work out just fine. Like what Steve Jobs said, it is helpful to remember that sooner or later we will die. So, even if I fail to finish that master’s degree or fail to make my first million pesos before the age of 35, God can still use me – so that others might learn from my mistakes – and God can get all the glory.